MICHAEL: Okay. What would you say inspires you in your music? What is it that inspires you to create your music?

WILLIAMS: It’s a feeling. You treat the air as a canvas and the paint is the chords that come through your fingers, out of the keyboard. So when I’m playing, I’m sort of painting a feeling in the air. I know that might sound corny, but—

MICHAEL: No. No, that’s a perfect analogy.

WILLIAMS: And when you know it’s done, you know it’s done. It’s like painting or sculpting. When you let it go it’s because you know that it’s finished. It’s completed. And vice versa—it tells you, “Hey, I’m not done.”

MICHAEL: Yeah. And it refuses to let you sleep until it’s finished.

WILLIAMS: That’s right.

MICHAEL: Yeah, I go through the same thing. [laughs] And what do you think of the music today—are you into the new sounds that are being created and the direction that music is going?

WILLIAMS: Well, personally, I kind of feel like I’m taking notes from people like yourself and Stevie [Wonder] and Donny [Hathaway], and just sort of doing what feels right.

MICHAEL: Right.

WILLIAMS: You know, like when everyone was going one way, you went ‘Off the Wall.’

MICHAEL: Right. [laughs]

WILLIAMS: And when everyone else was going another way, you went ‘Thriller.’ You just did it your way. And I’m taking notes from people like yourself, like not being afraid to listen to your feelings and turn your aspirations and ambitions into material. Making it happen, making it materialize . . .

MICHAEL: Who are some of the older artists—not the artists on the radio today—who inspired you when you were younger? Like the artists your father listened to, did you learn anything from those artists?

WILLIAMS: Absolutely. The Isley Brothers.

MICHAEL: Yeah, me too. I love the Isley Brothers. And I love Sly and the Family Stone.

WILLIAMS: Donny, Stevie.

MICHAEL: You like all the people I like. [laughs]

WILLIAMS: Those chord changes. They take you away.

MICHAEL: Beautiful, beautiful. Okay, well, where are you? In New York?

WILLIAMS: I’m in Virginia Beach, Virginia, sir.

MICHAEL: Virginia! Oh, beautiful. Will you give my love to Virginia?

WILLIAMS: Yes. Thank you.

MICHAEL: And your mother and your parents? Because God has blessed you with special gifts.

WILLIAMS: Thank you, sir. And I just want to say something, and I don’t know if you want to hear this, but I just have to say it because it’s on my heart. But people bother you—

MICHAEL: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: Because they love you. That’s the only reason why. When you do something that people don’t necessarily understand, they’re going to make it into a bigger problem than they would for anybody else because you’re one of the most amazing talents that’s ever lived. You’ve accomplished and achieved more in this century than most any other men.

MICHAEL: Well, thank you very much. That’s very kind of you.

WILLIAMS: What you do is so amazing. When you are 100 years old, and they’re still making up things about what you’ve done to this and what you’ve done to that on your body—please believe me, if you decided you wanted to dip your whole body in chrome, you are so amazing that the world, no matter what they say, is going to be right there to see it. And that is because of what you have achieved in the music world, and in changing people’s lives. People are having children to your songs. You’ve affected the world.

MICHAEL: Thank you very much. It’s like the bigger the star, the bigger the target. You know when you’re—and I’m not being a braggadocio or anything like that—but you know you’re on top when they start throwing arrows at you. Even Jesus was crucified. People who bring light to the world, from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Jesus Christ, even myself. And my motto has been ‘Heal the World,’ ‘We are the World,’ ‘Earth Song,’ Save Our Children, Help Our Planet. And people want to persecute me for it, but it never hurts, because the fan base becomes stronger. And the more you hit something hard, the more hardened it becomes—the stronger it becomes.And that’s what’s happened: I’m resilient. I have rhinoceros skin. Nothing can hurt me. Nothing.

WILLIAMS: That’s precisely my point. I just want to let you know you’re amazing, man. What you do to music, what you’ve done to music, from ‘Billie Jean’ to ‘That’s What You Get (For Being Polite)’ —[sings] “That’s what you get for being polite.”

MICHAEL: Oh, you know that one? [laughs]

WILLIAMS: [sings] “Jack still sits all alone.”

MICHAEL: Boy, you know all those ones . . . [hums a guitar riff]

WILLIAMS: If I never work with you, just know that you are unstoppable. That’s why I said, when you’re 100 years old and you decide to dip your entire body in chrome, as much as they say things—and I don’t care what they say about you, sir—they’re going to be right there to see it.

MICHAEL: There’s a lot of jealousy there. I love all races, I love all people, but sometimes there’s a devil in people, and they get jealous. Every time there’s a luminary that goes beyond the heights of his field of endeavour, people tend to get jealous and try to bring him down. But they can’t with me because I’m very, very, very strong. [laughs] They don’t know that, though.

WILLIAMS: Of course. They couldn’t crack you when you were 10, because you were destroying grown men doing what you did with your voice and your talent. And when you were 20, you were outdoing people that had been doing it for 20 or 30 years. And nowadays they’re still waiting to see where you’re at. They want to see your kids, they want to see your world. You’re amazing, and I just wanted to tell you that, man. And I hope that this all gets printed because it’s very important to me. I hope that I can be half as dope as you one day.

“Owing to Michael Jackson’s tragic passing, fans would never get to see his This Is It show. Payne tells us there were going to be many amazing surprises. Everyone from Diana Ross to Mariah Carey was going to sing and perform with Michael during the show’s run at the O2 Arena in London.Travis confided to me after the interview that it was going to be the greatest show ever and there are many surprises that were planned that people still don’t know about.”

Wow, how interesting .

“Though still early in her career, Jackson had let Travis know that he wanted to even invite Lady Gaga to perform with him. Who knows what the performance would’ve been like, but it would have aligned, in some way, the King of Pop and the Poker Face singer.”“I was working on This Is It with Michael Jackson and we were creating a shortlist of artists we were gonna invite to appear with Michael on the show at several events and different occasions. After we had gotten to the end of the list, we had of course Janet and Diana Ross and Justin Timberlake and Usher and Missy Elliot and Teddy Riley, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and a lot of people that he loved, artists. We got to the end of the list and I said, is there anybody else you add and he said, yeah. I said, who? Lady Gaga. I go really? He said, yeah, she’s cool and I said, ok.

I think all of these people to were involved in the hoax.At that time, I wasn’t familiar. I think Gaga had put out Poker Face. It was still early on at her success. And I said really? He said, yeah, she’s cool. You gotta get into her. And I said, ok. So that was really my sort of introduction to her. As you know, we wouldn’t get to do This Is It, but shortly after we completed all of the memorial services for Michael, I got a call from Lady Gaga. We had a discussion about her show and it just blew me away. I told her the story about how Michael had said that he wanted to invite her to sing with him in his show and of course she was so moved and humbled and then that’s how I met her. She just sort of called out of the blue. So I’d like to think Michael had everything to do with that.”

“I had the wonderful pleasure of working with Michael for 16 years. First, as a dancer and ultimately as his associate director and producer as well as choreography partner for This Is It and everything that the project turned out to be and I’m forever grateful to him for all the opportunities throughout the years…Being able to create with Michael on such a high level where you don’t run into the normal issues with budgets or excess or not being able to realize a vision. The only thing that was the deterrent was time.”

What about talk that the budget was limited and shootings are used only 2 cameras?

“I asked Travis when the last time he saw Michael Jackson was. “Was it shortly before the Gloved One’s passing?” Mr. Payne recalls the entire event like it was yesterday. He tells us they parted saying, “I love you” to each other.“The last time I saw Michael was June 24th. The evening, we had finished rehearsal and we had completed the show, all the beats were there and we were waiting on a few sort of components that would be used for the set and things like that and we were just about to leave the following week for London for a series of rehearsals there before opening. The evening before his passing, I saw him and we had a rehearsal and he was leaving. Just in true Michael Jackson fashion, as he’s leaving, we pass each other and always it was just a regular occurrence. You pass him in the hall or you pass him walking and you say, ‘I love you.’Most times he’ll say I love you first. That was the exchange, always. So we did that. I said, ok, see you tomorrow. He said, ok, see you at two o’clock and that was our time. We always met for This Is It and often times for other things. There was something about that time that was good and that was really it. Last thing he said to me was I love you. So I’m grateful for that and that was the last thing I said to him. So I’ll remember that forever as one of my sort of favorite moments that was the last thing we said to each other and we meant it.”

” He created his own schedule and we facilitated and worked with him on every single minute that he was available and he was sort of just so happy about all of it. He was happiest when he was creating. So it was so surprising to me that there was anything a matter with his health. He had passed every physical. He was working. He was showing up. He was doing his thing…It was an on going sort of a task to put this show together and he was at the helm of it all.So I just when so shocked like the rest of the world when he died. I still am in shock.”

Travis Payne told me he has not been called on to be a witness, testify or provide information for Dr. Conrad Murray’s trial. As for his future, Travis is hoping for it to be creative, productive and fulfilling. He is definitely a dream achiever.”

“All sorts of people connected to Michael Jackson are bursting at the sequined seams to be a part of the upcoming MJ-themed Cirque du Soleil show — including one of the dancers from Michael’s “This Is It” tour.”

What’s happening?
The two-year contract with the dancers TII extended?

“This joint venture is not only for those two shows, but for all of the other initiatives that we can develop together,” he added. “We are already working on the concept of nightclubs, restaurants and other experiences and other types of content that we can develop on the brand of Michael Jackson.”

One of the leading concepts is a reality TV show that Lamarre hopes to launch by the end of this year. He describes it as a chance to combine television’s two hottest shows, “American Idol” and “Dancing With the Stars,” with the distinctive style of the King of Pop.“

John McClain came to us with the idea,” he said of the yet-untitled program, which would have a national audience assisting as they built the Cirque stage shows. “We would pick the best choreographer that there is in the world to work on [our stage] show, but also use them in a reality show in order to find a new, cutting-edge choreographer that could join the team.”

The reality show would also audition dancers for the MJ shows, with a certain number of the top contestants landing a Cirque gig. “That could be an exciting moment,” Lamarre said of the show. “Right now there is a huge appetite for people that want to participate in this Michael Jackson tribute.”